


Roger That

by Angliya



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, M/M, Post-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:12:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1587860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angliya/pseuds/Angliya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ficlet prompt: "There's probably at least one biography about Steve that gets famous b/c it's like POSSIBLE HOMOSEXUAL FEELINGS FOR SGT BARNES? OR JUST BATTLEFIELD CAMARADERIE?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roger That

_The relationship between Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes was one that began far from the battlefield and instead in the slums of Brooklyn where they met in their youth. While it’s left to speculation entirely, it’s been questioned in historical circles as to the extent of their relationship which has been sourced as being “extremely close” and “affectionate”. Betty Dinges, a neighboring resident who knew the boys personally, spoke in an interview in 1955 in a government-wide documentation as to commemorate our fallen soldiers. In her recollections she recalls overhearing several things through the thin apartment walls, thing in her words that were “particularly obscene and sometimes downright ridiculous” at times depending on the evening. Barnes was known for being **cavalier**  in his relationships with the other sex but wouldn’t put it past him to be interested in things beyond such, even insighting the possibility of a large-scale cover up. Rogers, meanwhile, she says “would do most anything for Barnes”, hinting at the possibility of a deeper relationship than simply soldiers on the battlefield. “They’d go to dances together all dressed up in whatever they could put on and not come back until late in the night. Always laughing, always close.”_

_Rogers was known in his years before the Super Soldier Serum to have been highly involved in the fine arts, often using Barnes as a subject of art as found in sketchbooks recovered from his home and put on public memorial display. [Photographs on the right are from the National Archive located in Washington D.C circa 1936] While pages have been extracted and unrecoverable, the evidence is suggestive to at the very least an infatuation that has roots long before the beckon of war.  
  
_ _Corporal Timothy Aloysius Cadwallander Dugan, fellow Howling Commando and close friend to both Rogers and Barnes, provided little comment when the question of romance was proposed first-hand. “Nothing unusual to see them doing a little shoulder leaning or hand touching, it was a way of coping and we all did it time-to-time. I’m not denying the possibility but not imposing it. It was war and we did whatever we had to in order to survive. Two men sharing a smoke and hell, even holding hands? Nothing out of the normal. Closer to each other than the rest of us? Sure. But when you’re laying in the sub-zero cold with nothing but your bare comrade next to you, you do what you gotta do. We mourned Sergeant Barnes together and to this day the Captain as well.” Dugan refused any further comment after numerous efforts of requesting a personal interview._  
  
—  
  
They had told him numerous times over that the modern world was more open than it had ever been before but Steve was beginning to think that was a bunch of bullshit. The book on its own was acclaimed by television shows and cited in countless different places, spurring multiple film documentaries and websites dedicated to understanding an inkling of whatever it was they believed to have a darker and even problematic subtext.

Of course it made no difference if they were right or not — hell he didn’t even remember speaking to Betty Dinges on his floor but maybe a few times in his whole life and knew she smiled more than she spoke. Should have been more quiet though dammit,  they had been rather careless and Bucky just didn’t care. Of course it didn’t matter now, a book was dead weight in his hands, and Steve simply sat with his shoulders back reading the words on the cover over and over again.

**Roger That: The Untold Love Story.  
**

So what if he had kissed bucky more times than he could count on his fingers and toes, so what if he had drawn bucky in the most promiscuous of ways and proceeded to rip them out and keep them folded in the pockets of his jacket. There were times he had to stand on his tip-toes to even plant a kiss and most of them were from Bucky on the forehead, telling him that he was the tiniest and loudest goddamn punk on the east side of the Mississippi. times where they were dance and hum the tune because they could and he could feel the vibration in Bucky’s chest as they swayed along. Bucky had meant the world to him and  _still_ meant everything, even as they sat together in the 21st century on a lumpy old sofa.  
  
Bucky’s head is on his lap with his hair strung in every which direction even though there had been a pitiful attempt at tying it back. Steve is careful in how he moves for fear of waking him even though it’s tempting to chuck the book out the nearest window and hear the pleasant sound of it hitting solid concrete. he shifts one knee and then the next, slouching and stroking away the stray hairs from Bucky’s face one-by-one. Bucky’s hand squeezes for a moment at the fabric of Steve’s jacket and he mumbles something incoherent, nose buried in jeans.  
  
Of course it had been something they didn’t speak about word-for-word whenever they were out in public or around anyone else. The Howling Commandos knew about it by default, it was hard to not when you slept next to each other in near-constant proximity. none of them never said a word even though they had every reason to. But every day was precious and they had been right up until the day Bucky had fallen from the train as if they knew from the start there was nothing but travesty in the wake of victory. they had seen him cry for the first time since he had stepped foot onto the European Theatre.  
  
There was no point in denying anything, at least not to each other.  
  
"You move a lot." Bucky says quietly in a muffled voice that’s half full of denim, one eye peeking open while the other remained shut. "If you wanted me to move you could have just said something y’know."  
  
The last thing Steve wanted was Bucky to wake up from a much needed sleep but pushes the book carefully down into the cushions as to not toss gasoline onto a fire that already burned hot. “Why do you think I didn’t say anything?”  
  
"Didn’t know if you felt obligated or not, hell, most people don’t like being a human pillow." Bucky’s words are dry but he’s smiling like something came to mind, something Steve was certain they were both thinking about. all the times Steve would use Bucky as a resting place when they would sit nearly bare in their apartment with the windows wide open in the middle of summer, trying to not swelter in the heat. Bucky was the best place to lay no matter the season.  
  
"For you? nah. You’d do the same for me."  
  
"Difference between you and me though is that I don’t  _squirm_.” Bucky picks his head up and lopsidedly sits up, rolling his shoulders and looking utterly deprived of sleep even though he had managed to get a solid eight hours. He smacks his lips with his mouth dry, blinking himself back into slow focus. “We used to do that all the time, huh. Sleep like that.”

Steve nods, watching Bucky’s face contort and his nose scrunch back and forth like he smelled something repulsive. “It was usually me laying on you and you were definitely better than I was. that seemed to be how most everything went so I was glad to accept it. Bucky Barnes, the world’s renown human pillow.”  
  
"I’ll take it." Bucky slouches with his legs sprawled out enough so that his knee meets Steve’s and they glance at each other for a brief moment, rocking their knees back and forth so they tapped together.   
  
Steve watches him sideways as their knees finally stop and rest against each other indefinitely, feeling out of place with a burning that made his ears feel hot, like his heart might beat right out of his chest. if it had been a different time he could have sworn it was a lung finally giving out just as the doctor’s prescribed.  
  
God if the book stuffed deep in the sofa had eyes of its own it would be _screaming_  but always for Bucky. To Hell or high water, till they couldn’t see straight anymore and all that was left was each other.   
  
Bucky leans against him and sighs, metal cold against steve’s arm but it’s only enough to give him goosebumps. “You always were a punk.” he mutters.  
  
"Takes one to know one."  
  
And they sit with nothing but kisses on their mind.


End file.
